Free Republic

Post-war stress too much for Marlboro Man's marriage By Catherine Elsworth in Los Angeles (Filed: 28/06/2006) A US marine whose photograph touched the hearts of countless Americans has filed for divorce just weeks after his lavish wedding was funded by donations from the public. An iconic picture of James Blake Miller, 21, was taken in 2004 during a break from combat in Fallujah and was published in hundreds of newspapers. Showing him grubby-faced and exhausted with a cigarette dangling from his lips, it earned him the nickname Marlboro Man. After his return to the United States, the lance corporal revealed...

Was fig first fruit of man's agricultural endeavours? By Roger Highfield, Science Editor (Filed: 02/06/2006) The dawn of agriculture may have come with the domestication of fig trees near Jericho some 11,400 years ago, archaeologists report today. The discovery of ancient carbonised figs suggests that fruit, rather than grains that are traditionally thought to have heralded agriculture, may yield the earliest evidence of purposeful planting. The figs date back roughly 1,000 years before wheat, barley and legumes were domesticated in the region, making the fruit trees the oldest known domesticated crop, a team reports today in the journal Science. Nine...

Java Man's First Tools Richard Stone INDO-PACIFIC PREHISTORY ASSOCIATION CONGRESS, 20-26 MARCH 2006, MANILA About 1.7 million years ago, a leggy human ancestor, Homo erectus, began prowling the steamy swamps and uplands of Java. That much is known from the bones of more than 100 individuals dug up on the Indonesian island since 1891. But the culture of early "Java Man" has been a mystery: No artifacts older than 1 million years had been found--until now. At the meeting, archaeologist Harry Widianto of the National Research Centre of Archaeology in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, wowed colleagues with slides showing stone tools found...

You want to make Greg Mortenson laugh? Ask him whether his life has ever been threatened. He could talk about the time he tried — and failed — to climb one of the world's deadliest mountains. Or how Afghan warlords kidnapped him for eight days. Or how he choked from the stench of rancid goat hides that hid him in the back of a truck as he escaped a gunfight. Life isn't quite as dangerous this week, as the Roseville native enjoys a media tour for his new book, "Three Cups of Tea." The biography recounts the Indiana Jones adventures...

SIERRA VISTA — When Jay Record woke up this morning, he already had the gift he wanted — a new kidney. Now the Sierra Vista dad hopes to be starting 2006 with a new lease of life after receiving the kidney from his sister Juliann. The siblings are now recovering from the Dec. 15 operation, which took place at the Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center in Phoenix. “I felt great knowing that I would be getting a healthy kidney, especially coming from a family member. That made it really special,” said Jay, 34, who first learned his kidneys were not...

Nasa tries to figure out real-life Rain Man's brain Robin McKie, science editor Sunday December 11, 2005 The Observer (UK) It took Kim Peek just over an hour to read Tom Clancy's The Hunt for Red October. Four months later, when asked to give the name of the book's Russian radio operator, Peek quoted the entire relevant passage. It was a prodigious feat. Yet for Peek - the real-life 'savant' on whom Dustin Hoffman's character in the film Rain Man is based - such recall only gives a glimpse of his powers. He knows 9,000 books off by heart; he...

When a rock hits the calm surface of a pond, ripples form at the point of impact and travel outward in expanding circles. The story begins with a young man and his dream - a dream of overcoming his health problems and flying for the Air Force. The boy, Ryan Penne, 14, of Chico, Calif., stepped into dreamland last year at Beale Air Force Base, Calif., when he and his family were guests of Col. Darryl W. Burke - then the 9th Reconnaissance Wing's vice commander - for a comprehensive base tour as part of the Make-A-Wish program. Ryan suffers...

Ancient man's lost secrets on test Paul Jeeves TECHNOLOGY from the 21st century will be used to unlock the past to one of Yorkshire's most important archaeological finds from the Bronze Age. Gristhorpe Man, one of the best preserved examples of human remains buried in a hollow oak tree trunk, will leave Scarborough's Rotunda Museum today in specially constructed boxes for Bradford University's Department of Archaeological Sciences. The latest technology will be used to try to extract samples from the remains for analysis to establish how the Bronze Age man died as well as gathering more detail about his lifestyle...

BARWANA, Iraq (Nov. 10, 2005) -- Being an infantryman and standing security posts go hand in hand when in Iraq. While some are in security positions and others are regulating traffic, these posts are an important part of keeping Marines safe here. Standing many hours on these posts keeping his fellow Marines with Company L, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, safe is Los Angeles native, Lance Cpl. Steve Nuno. The automatic rifleman spends hours everyday manning the entry control point and other security position at the base here. His job while spending time on these mostly uneventful posts is to...

Posted on Thu, Oct. 27, 2005 Clovis speakers discuss man's origins in the United States MEG KINNARD Associated Press COLUMBIA, S.C. - A University of Texas archaeologist opened the highly anticipated "Clovis in the Southeast" conference at the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center Thursday by rejecting the premise on which many experts once based their theories on man's North American origins. At the meeting, sponsored in part by the University of South Carolina, Michael Collins called the idea that the first inhabitants traveled by way of a land bridge from Asia "primal racism." Instead, Collins said, they arrived by water, because...

HADITHA DAM, Iraq (Oct. 18, 2005) -- The use of dogs as guardians of military camps to protect against surprise attacks dates back to ancient Egypt. Today, dogs are not only guarding bases but also patrolling with Marines of 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment in Iraq. Sergeant James J. Wasmer, a Chatham, Mass., native, and his search dog, Euro, are one K-9 team busy doing weapons caches sweeps and entry control point searches to keep citizens of Iraq and Marines safe. Recently the team conducted a sweep with the battalion’s Company L to look for weapons caches and other explosives...

Seafood was the spur for Man's first migration By Roger Highfield, Science Editor (Filed: 13/05/2005) The lure of a seafood diet may explain why the first people left Africa, according to a genetic analysis published today that overturns the conventional picture of the very first migration of modern humans. The international project shows - contrary to previous thinking - that early modern humans spread across the Red Sea from the Horn of Africa, along the tropical coast of the Indian Ocean towards the Pacific in just a few thousand years. And it suggests that the first migratory wave probably included...

Deseret Morning News, Sunday, October 03, 2004 Mexico discovery fuels debate about man's origins Archeologists are baffled by hominid bones By John Rice Associated Press MEXICO CITY — For decades, Federico Solorzano has gathered old bones from the shores of Mexico's largest lake — bones he found and bones he was brought, bones of beasts and bones of men. Mexican professor Federico Solorzano shows the supraorbital arch from the fossil of an early hominid. Guillermo Arias, Associated Press The longtime teacher of anthropology and paleontology was sifting through his collection one day when he noticed some that didn't seem to...

Peking Man's skullcap on display in China September 22 2003 at 06:39AM Beijing - A crucial skull fragment belonging to the famous 500 000-year-old Peking Man is being shown to the public for the first time ever, Chinese state media said on Monday. The priceless bone fragment is on display at a museum 48km south-west of Beijing, near the place where Peking Man was first discovered almost a century ago, the Xinhua news agency reported. Although the bone is little more than the size of a palm and shows only the front part of an individual's skull, it is one...

PITTSBURGH (AP) -- A man who thought he had hatched a perfect alibi to charges that he murdered a man in a barroom shooting two years ago had his scheme foiled when a letter asking a friend to lie for him was returned and was read by jail guards. Demetrius Murrell, 24, of Pittsburgh, pleaded guilty Thursday to a charge of third-degree murder after prosecutors read the letter in court. In the letter, Murrell asked his friend for "a little alibi" during his upcoming trial on charges that he shot and killed a 19-year-old man in a Pittsburgh bar on...

After 43 years of blindness, Michael May can see again. HE CAN play soccer with his sons, enjoy movies and, for the first time, gaze on the Sierra Nevada slopes he has expertly skied — sightless — since the late 1970s. But May can’t recognize his sons, Carson, 11, and Wyndham, 9, by their faces alone. The same goes for identifying Jennifer, his wife of 15 years. People “can’t fathom that,” said May, who owns a company in Davis, Calif., that makes navigational software for the blind. Three years after surgery restored sight to May’s right eye, researchers say May’s...

Officer cleared of wrongdoing Video from surveillance cameras showed the jury the incident exactly as it happened   Posted: 08/13/2003 06:16 pm Story filed by NewsCenter16 Reporter Mark Peterson Today former inmate George Staggs, who suffered injuries while in custody at the St. Joseph County Jail, asked for $330,000 in damages. Staggs alleged that a member of the Mishawaka Police force used excessive force against him when he was an inmate at the jail. Much of the treatment of Staggs while he was an inmate was captured on videotape by the jail surveillance cameras in October of 2000. The video shows Staggs...

<p>TAMPA -- While their wives drove Rolls-Royces and moved among Tampa's elite, Douglas S. Cone and Donald Carlson always seemed busy with business.</p> <p>Cone, the 74-year-old millionaire owner of a Tampa highway construction company, was gone most weekdays.</p> <p>Carlson was also frequently away from home -- an absence his family attributed to a sensitive government job that required him to travel for long stretches.</p>

Total Disbelief’ Penis Removal Just Latest In Series of Surgical Mistakes, But Patients Can Protect Themselves Aug. 11— After 67-year-old Hurshell Ralls went into surgery for bladder cancer, he came out of surgery missing more than he ever expected. His penis and testicles were gone "My wife had to hold my hand in the bed there. And she said 'Honey it's over. They got all the cancer.' And she waited a few minutes and then said 'But they had to remove your penis.' And I was one mad dude, you know," Ralls said on ABCNEWS' Good Morning America. Ralls, a...

Two years ago, Deloris Roberts' son died in a controversial police shooting in the Central District. Now Gregory Neubert, one of the Seattle officers involved in the incident, is suing her, contending that he was injured when her son dragged him alongside a car. Roberts, who was served with the suit this week, said Neubert's claims against her and the state of Washington have only brought back her anger and pain. "He wants me to pay for the murder of my son," she said yesterday. "I have never, in all my days, heard of anything like this. It just brings...

Wednesday, 20 November, 2002, 13:16 GMTElephant man's descendant found Joseph Merrick and Pat Selby will share similar genes Experts have traced a descendant of the the "Elephant Man" Joseph Merrick who could help determine what caused his disfigurements. A television research team called in the help of geneologists in Leicestershire to trace people related to Merrick, who was once exhibited as a circus freak in the 19th Century. Following a BBC appeal, Pat Selby, from Leicester, contacted her local family history society. Now the research team will take DNA samples from her and, using the latest genetic techniques, try to...